Bloom Energy By the Numbers

With the official launch of fuel cell maker Bloom Energy on Wednesday I’m not any more sure if the company can actually deliver on some of its claims, though it has a lot of well-known customers like Google and eBay saying it’s delivered on its promises. But the 8-year-old company, which has raised close to $400 million to get it where it is today, put out some new numbers at the event this morning that can help naysers and fans alike figure out what Bloom hopes to achieve. Here’s some of the figures that Bloom Energy is putting out there:

Payback: Bloom Energy founder KR Sridhar says that the payback on investment for their customers is 3 to 5 years in energy cost savings. Sridhar confirmed to me that the 3 to 5 year claimed payback is with the California and federal subsidy, and Sridhar refused to comment on what the payback would be without the subsidy. Since the subsidy is half the cost of the device, I think its safe to say that a payback without the subsidies would be at least double that. The Oil Drum puts the ROI at 15 years. (Some of our commenters put it at more).

Cost of the 100KW Box: Between $700,000 to $800,000. So $7,000 to $8,000 per kW.

What Fuel Cells Need to Be: As Alexis Madrigal puts it over on Wired the Solid State Energy Conversion Alliance predicts that fuel cells will need to cost $700 per kw to compete with the grid. (see Bloom’s 10x’s price above at $7,000 per kW).

Price per kWh with subsidies: Bloom’s Stu Aaron tells Lux Research the cost of electricity over a Bloom server’s 10-year life is: “$0.08/kWh to $0.10/kWh (when running as base-load for 24 hours a day), including government incentives and assuming a $7/mmBTU natural gas long-term contract.”

Price per kWh without subsidies: Lux writes that: “Without incentives, we calculate electricity would cost $0.13/kWh to $0.14/kWh, with about $0.09/kWh from system cost and about $0.05/kWh coming from fuel cost. Note that this is high compared to average retail U.S. electricity costs of roughly $0.11/kWh.”

The subsidy: A 30 percent federal government tax credit and a $2,500 per kilowatt California subsidy for fuel cells. All of the Bloom customers that spoke on the panel today had installed Bloom boxes in California.

Bloom Looking to Cut Costs: NEA Partner and Bloom Energy investor Scott Sandell says that he thinks Bloom can cut the costs of its fuel cell by between 60 to 70 percent over the next several years. Here’s how. He said that the costs of the fuel cell have already come down by 25 times since he invested in the company in 2005.

Carbon reduction: Bloom says that customers can get between a 40 and 100 percent reduction in their carbon footprint as compared with the U.S. grid, depending on if they are using natural gas or renewable methane. Michael Kanellos of GreentechMedia asked Sridhar during the Q&A session for the math on for 1 ton of CO2 emitted how much fuel would be used, and Sridhar didn’t provide an answer.